Veil of Tears
by wicked-angel-413
Summary: A story about the story, I guess. A little girl, lost and alone, and searching for a place to belong. Please R and R!
1. Dreamland

**A/N:** While I can allow myself to read Narnian fanfic, it just would feel wrong to write any myself unless it didn't mess with the book's contents. So here is my first Narnian fanfic, that isn't exactly about Narnia or the characters that C. S. Lewis brilliantly brought to life for us, but more of a story about the story, I suppose.

**Summary:** This story follows the plight of a lonely and desolate child. A child who feels as though all her life she has been left behind by everything and everyone. A child who desperately tries to reach a land of magic and mystery where she hopes to finally feel free and as though she belongs. A child who grows to a teenaged mess who has long since forgotten, long since stopped believing and pretending. A child who will eventually become a young woman, tired of struggling within herself. A child who will eventually come to the final realization.

**Disclaimer:** Narnia is not mine, but this story is. I created the little girl in this story and her friends and family. Narnia and everything in it created by C. S. Lewis, however, I did not.

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_"Life is a veil of tears…"_

**Chapter 1: Dreamland**

She lived in a world of dreams. The air whipped locks of her hair to cover her face before thrusting it back once again. She clung to the chains, rocking her small body back and forth as she kicked her legs, climbing higher and higher till she reached the peak of the height that she could gain.

Sad and curious eyes drifted across the vast area before her, watching other children rush around, playing together, and being friends. She frowned.

She was only nine, but in all her life she could only truly remember one home. And now she was on the other side of the country. Every night she would go home and tell her parents about all the new friends she had made and all the fun they had together in the past two months. Except it was all a lie. She was alone, and no one even so much as tried to acknowledge her. They did not seem to care. They had their own worlds and left her alone to try and make one for herself. Only it was not working.

Her one wish in the entire world was to have new friends. But it did not seem to her as though that would ever happen. So perhaps if not in this world, there was some other world where she truly belonged. Maybe there was some other world where she would never want for friends, where she would never be alone. But instead she was left in the harsh reign of reality, a place where everyone was happy but her. A place where she was left on the sidelines to watch the happiness of others, but never interact.

She took another look at the other children, all so happy together.

A tear slowly coursed its way down her face as her legs stopped kicking and her body lost momentum. Her toes dragged in the sand as she slowly came to a complete halt. She clung to those blackened chains for a few seconds longer, not noticing the rust flake off and stick to her sweaty palms as she remained entranced by the laughing children. She finally stood and began to trudge across the field and back to her class. The pain one such as this that child could suffer at such a young age would be unbearable to many adults. The vast longing and utter desire to be in a world where she belonged was that unbelievably great.

The bell rang when she was almost at the classroom. She paused. She wished she would walk through the door and be magically transported to another world. Like the little girl in the book their teacher was reading to them. Someone ran into her instead, and they tumbled to the ground together.

"Sorry!" she heard the simple word as it was practically yelled into her ear. "Sorry," the person-- another girl-- repeated, quieter this time.

She looked at the strange girl's face. It was the girl that everyone in her class adored and wanted to be best friends with.

"Come on, we'll be late!" the girl exclaimed, taking her hand and running the short remaining distance to the class.

As she struggled to keep up, she smiled. She gripped the other girl's hand— the _popular _girl's hand— just a little tighter, and she ran just a little faster. Finally there was someone to hold on to, someone who saw her rather than through her for the first time in months. The other world she had imagined melted away without notice as she wondered if she could say she had a friend now.

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**A/N: **So what do you guys think? Please R+R! I'd appreciate it so much! Thanks! 


	2. Broken Bonds

A/N: People can be unbelievably harsh to one another, and the guilt those actions can leave behind can be unbearable at times. While things can be resolved, innocence will be forever lost. Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy.

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_"Life is a veil of tears…" _

**Chapter 2: Broken Bonds **

She sat in her room, contemplating all the changes she had been through over the past three years. She had made many friends since moving from her old home. She now ranked number three in popularity, and that was a huge thing in the sixth grade. She was now an integral part of the close-knit popular group. But she was afraid she had made a colossal mistake two weeks ago in pushing away the fourth member of the girl's group-- her best friend. She was just so tired of being treated like crap by someone who was supposed to be her best friend forever. She had dealt with it for two years now, and had not wanted it to go on any longer. Everyone saw it. Their other friends saw it, other peers saw it, even their cheer coach saw it. What she hadn't known was that in pushing her friend away from herself, it was as though she signed the death warrant for her friend's social life. Everyone pushed her friend away. Everyone ignored her friend.

Her friend was a complete outcast.

And in return for causing this cruelty, she now felt like an outcast as well. At least within herself. The guilt weighed heavily down upon her. She watched her friend suffer every day. But not for much longer. Her friend's mother was pulling her out and transferring her to another school. This made her sad, but it was for the best. They would never see each other again. They could both go on to live their lives and be happy, apart from each other forever. It would be good. It would be great.

Except there was no longer a fourth. Their little group had been bonded, but split in half at the same time, formed from one pair of best friends and another pair of best friends. Who would be her best friend now? She felt out of the loop without her own constant companion. There was no one who was always there for her, no one to be her partner in phsy ed, no one to swap papers with for grading. She had found a semi-substitute, there were many willing to take the position of such great popularity by association, but none that really fit. They did not care enough about clothes, or about boys, or about the newest and hottest boy band, or about make-up. There was always at least one essential piece towards popularity that they lacked that her best friend had.

So inside, she felt alone. Each day she would go to school and smile and go through the motions, but they were becoming hollow without anyone there to help back them up. Without anyone there to fill the hole.

She sat in her room, contemplating all the changes she had been through over the past three years. She had made many friends since moving from her old home. But she had pushed away the most important one and was losing her forever.

She looked over to her closet. The door was open and it was so full of clothes that she could not see the back wall.

She looked at her bookcase next to the door. Her eyes fell upon a set of books she had not read in a long time. She tilted her head to the side in thought as she began to wonder…

She rationalized with herself that a wardrobe was just a really old closet as she stood and took a step towards the closet door. Slowly, she approached it. Finally, she reached it.

She looked around, ensuring that the door to her room was firmly shut and locked. She stepped into the closet and tentatively held out a hand towards the clothes.

Maybe, just maybe, if this worked then she could escape this harsh, cruel world to another land, one where she would be happy and could leave behind the drama her life here offered her. Maybe she could reach some faraway, magical land with talking animals and golden fruit, where people still lived in castles and fought battles with swords and arrows, where an entire day could be passed laying on the ground watching the clouds roll by. Maybe, just maybe, she could do it if she truly wanted it badly enough. And she thought she did.

Her hand stretched out a little further, winding its way through her clothing, reaching towards the back, hoping she would not find one.

As her fingertips grazed the cold wall behind the clothing, an inexplicable sadness filled her entire being.

And then an incessant pounding began on the door leading to the rest of her house.

When she returned to sit on her bed once more, having been chastised by her mother who finally found out what had been going on at school, she heaved a great sigh. Her mother had ordered her to call her best friend and apologize. She did not really think she wanted to apologize for standing up for herself, but she knew she did want to apologize for how it happened and the actions of others, done on her behalf.

For the first time in two weeks, she dared to hope as she picked up the phone and dialed the number she had known by heart for two years. After all, best friends forever were best friends forever.

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A/N: So what do you all think? And thanks a ton to Black Moon White Sun and Callie Beth for the reviews. 


	3. Shattered World

A/N: To start, I want to give a big thanks to Mistress of the Dark Shadows for the review. Sorry you got confused last chapter, and I hope you understand more now. Basically, the pstory is collowing one girl throughout her life, following the big challenges occuring for her every three years. Now we all know that People come and people go in the span of our lives. Some leave a deep mark on us for the rest of our lives, and some will be quickly forgotten in favor of better things. And I think a lot of us actually did try to get to Narnia. And while we all may have tried different ways, this was the way that I tried… Hope you enjoy.

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_"Life is a veil of tears…"_

**Chapter 3: Shattered World**

They were supposed to last forever. It was supposed to be eternity. They were supposed to fill each other's lives with happiness.

He was supposed to be "The One."

Except instead, he dumped her. Almost an entire year of happiness, and he dumped her the night before they started their sophomore year of high school. He dumped her one month and eighteen days before their one year anniversary. He dumped her two months and twelve days ago.

She wished he did not matter so much to her. She wished that she could just forget about him as easily as he seemed to forget about her. She wished that she could find a new guy like he had immediately found a new girl. She wished there was some way to rid herself of this unbearable pain ripping her apart from the inside. She wished she could at least run away to some far off place where she would never have to see him again, where she would never have to hear his name again, where she would be able to wonder if he had ever really existed outside of her imagination. Or a place where at least he would not matter so much, to her or those around her.

Each day she would go to school, and she would be happy. Or at least she would look happy. And she had gotten so good at this that people truly believed she was happy. Even her best friend for the past five years thought she was alright now. So everyday she would wake up, put on a costume, paint her face, and stand up to the world. Every day she would play the part and go through the motions, ensuring they never became predictable, however. Yet every day she would go home after cheer practice was finally over, and she would crawl into her bed. She would hide beneath the plush covers with her teddy bear, the one he had gotten her, and she would curl into a little ball and cry.

She hated that he had this effect. She supposed it was normal, but she did not care if it was normal. She just did not want it to be her, not right now. Her life was supposed to be perfect, but instead it was falling apart. Correction, it had fallen apart over two months ago. It had been shattered into millions of pieces, and she did not know if she would ever manage to pick up those pieces and put them together again. She was instead just floating aimlessly in a dark, endless void.

She hated what her life had become. She hated that she turned down all the dates she was offered except a few. She hated that those few accepted dates were carefully chosen to show she was still interested in dating, and that she was still interested in dating the "right" guys. She hated that she had to further play a part on those dates. She hated that she had to lead those guys on, even for just one night, before finding yet another excuse for each one on why he just "wasn't right for her." She hated that they did not seem to mind, did not seem to try anything else. She hated making her mother think that she spent all the time in her room studying because sophomore year was "so much harder that frosh year _ever _was," rather than lying in her bed crying and ignoring her homework as much as possible.

She poked her head from under her comforter. It felt nice and safe under there, but it got hot and hard to breathe at times. And right now it was not offering as much comfort as it typically did. Neither was her teddy bear. She needed something more. Ice cream was too fattening, her friend and family thought she was over it, and her DVD player was broken, effectively cutting her off from all chick flick enjoyment for the time being. She wondered what else there was if she was forbidden from ice cream, her friends and family, and The Princess Bride, what else was there? She pondered the thought.

With the closest thing to a real smile that she had shown in months, she rolled out of bed in search of a fairy tale book. If she could not watch one, then maybe she should try reading one. She crouched in front of her bookcase to search the bottom shelf for a book properly filled with magic, happiness, and laughter. She was not quite sure if she did want romance, but she would not object if she found it. She smiled as she saw her old favorites. She grabbed one at random and returned to the comfort of her bed.

Not too much later, she was standing in the middle of her room facing east holding her arms out in front of her with the palms down.

"Aslan, Aslan, Aslan!" she began. "Please let, uh, me go into… um, Narnia," she faltered at the point where Eustace and Jill and been interrupted, not knowing what Eustace intended to say next. She looked around, but remained in her room. Stuck in her depressed world without anyone who really cared or made an effort for her anymore rather than in a faraway land where her troubles could simply melt away. She sunk down onto her bed and buried her face in her hands.

There was a knock on her door.

"Yes?" she called tentatively.

"Something just came for you," her mother spoke through the door.

She stood and checked her appearance in the mirror before crossing the room to the door and opening it. She gasped. She could not see her mother's face because of the large bouquet of roses she held in her hands.

"Thank you," she said as she took them from her mother. Her mother smiled and left.

She found the card hidden amongst the roses and read it. Her head tilted to one side in thought as she toyed with the card in her fingers.

She smiled softly, a real and genuine smile, as she turned to set the roses on her dresses and begin getting ready for her second date with her last carefully chosen boy, the one who she thought could have worked under different circumstances and who apparently did not take no for an answer.

Not that she really minded.

A/N: So how's the newest chapter? Hope you guys are all enjoying. There's only 2 chapters left.


	4. Moving Away

A/N: Sometimes your childhood can teach you the most important lessons about life and the world if only you let it. Enjoy.

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"Life is a veil of tears…"_

**Chapter 4: Moving Away**

The quiet surrounded her, drawing her into its al encompassing, yet comforting embrace. Her feet padded softly on the carpet as she walked through the house, scavenging like a vulture for anything she may be able to appropriate for herself. She stopped by the rarely used breakfast table, contemplating it, but immediately discarding it. It would never fit. She traveled down the hall to the linen closet and began carefully picking out sheet sets and blankets, even a couple spare pillows. These she smuggled to her room before going in search of more treasures. She took books she had enjoyed, yet not bought, such as Pride and Prejudice, The Catcher in the Rye, and Memoirs of a Geisha. She hurried about the house to finish before the owners returned, ensuring that she left no corner unchecked. She contemplated old plate sets, turned down silverware, appreciatively eyed an unused set of glasses. She took old end tables, putting aside the plants now set upon them. She borrowed a shirt, nicked a few skirt hangers, and even stole a picture. Finally, the house had been exhausted.

She was ready to go to college. And her parents weren't even home from their grocery shopping yet. She cocked her head aside as she realized she would need to raid the refrigerator and the pantry before she left. But that was ok. Besides that, all she needed now was to pack what had been her utmost necessities the past week the next morning and retrieve her old friend. She was not sure if she could survive the next few weeks without him. The daunting prospect of college that lay ahead of her did not seem entirely promising. She was too frightened to face it alone.

So with a sigh, she ascended the pull-down ladder in the garage into the attic. She used to love it there and all the possibilities it seemed to offer. Perhaps it could have been her bedroom, had it just possessed heating. Perhaps she and her friends could have hung out there, had it only had furniture. Perhaps it could have been her playroom as a child, providing a castle for her to roam around in while the evil witch cast spells outside. But she was too old for such nonsense anymore. It was long ago that she had stopped believing, stopped pretending, stopped playing silly little games. She had long ago expelled fairy tales and stuffed animals from her room. Yet here she was, searching for the teddy bear her mother had gotten her over ten years ago.

She opened the first box. It was filled with Christmas ornaments. The next provided numerous cables and wiring that she had no clue what any of it was for. The third box was full of science fiction novels her parents had abandoned. Then a box of old pictures. Then one full of old movies. Box after box, she seemed no closed to her childhood until finally she found something. A box of toys, long since forgotten, yet never given away.

"We can give them to your children!" her mother had said. She shook her head, still not entirely sure that would ever happen. They would most likely stay up here with everything else for another forty or sixty years.

The next box held a collection of Barbie dolls and accessories.

The next made her pause. It was full of all her old, foolish fairy tale books. She pulled one out. It was a classic, Grimm's Fairy Tales. She set it aside and looked beneath it to find Aesop's fables. Book after book seemed a sort of forbidden treasure. She was supposed to be reading Shakespeare, not Mother Goose. And then she saw it. The box was practically in pieces, but she carefully extracted the set of paperbacks. It had been at least two years since she had seen them. She pulled one out, The Magician's Nephew, and began to thumb through the pages with a soft smile. She remembered all her past attempts to get into the world of Narnia. Maybe if she had just been able to get a set of the rings Polly and Digory had… She shook her head, wondering where such foolish thoughts had come from. It seemed that there was no way in anyway, regardless of whether or not she had any rings. And she most definitely did not want to get lost in that in between woods place or another world, completely separate from both her own and Narnia.

Her eyebrows furrowed. Why did these books always make her act to ridiculously? Yet she could not help it when her eyes squeezed shut tight, and her heart began to wish. She mumbled frenzied prayers and dreams beneath her breath, over and over again. Seconds turned into minutes, yet for her it was as though time itself had stopped. As she sat kneeling in the eerie silence of the attic, faint light filtering in from a nearby window and surrounded in dust, she clutched the book in her lap, her knuckles turning white around it. Finally, her mouth was too dry to carry on, and her back ached from sitting so tensely for so long. Her eyes cracked open, hardly daring to hope. The lids dropped again quickly, but only for a second. After all, what had she really expected?

It had been too long. Those adventures had taken place somewhere around the 1940's most likely, and Narnia had died since then. "Further up and further in." And she was too old, far too old. She sighed, and looked down at the book in her lap. It was relatively unharmed by its attic stay.

She smiled. If she could not go to Narnia, the least she could do was take Narnia with her.

The teddy bear long forgotten, she climbed down the ladder with the books in one arm and went to pack them with the rest of her belongings.

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A/N: So what do you guys think about how the story's going? Please review! Sorry to say, but one more chapter and this story is done. 


	5. Coming Home

A/N: These books helped me out a lot spiritually. I wasn't raised religiously, so these books were really as close as I got to the Bible during my childhood. Hope you all enjoyed this story though, because this is the end. And thanks to JediMan for the review. And it is a little more than that, but very little. : )

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_"Life is a veil of tears…"_

**Chapter 5: Coming Home**

She glanced out the window at the soft, white flakes floating aimlessly to the ground, thinking over times long past. It was Christmas time, and with this season came the onslaught of commercial advertising. She could not stand it. The cheerful songs that filled the air, the snow falling, and the trees glittering she loved. She loved everything about Christmas except for the businesses turning it into a day about nothing but gifts and turkey feasts, and society's mindless compliance with these wishes. She wondered how many people out of the billions populating the earth actually cared about the true meaning of Christmas, the love and peace which it brought, the good will, the joy, and most importantly of all, the birth of Christ.

She was not a very religious person, far from it really. But she was religious. She had been raised in a Christian home. She just never gave mush thought to it for the longest time. But over the past few years she had realized a lot. College had taught her much more than simply her academics. She had found a peace within herself and with others. She had come to accept herself and love herself for who she was.

And it all started because of a simple set of books.

While she had been raised Christian, she never paid much attention in church as she was growing up. She had never really read the Bible. So she never would have seen the connection had someone not told her.

She had been surprised when she first discovered around two years ago that C. S. Lewis's stories were allegorical. She had read them again and again in a an entirely different light. And then, though she knew them to be silly and maybe even a little irrational, her thoughts began to wonder…

She had wondered why, if Aslan was God, had he ignored her futile attempts when she was young. She did not expect he would have let her into Narnia, into heaven, no, but some solace may have been nice during those times. She had thought back to her nearly tangible loneliness as a child, to the guilt over betraying her best friend, to the pain of losing the one she had hoped to be with forever, to the fear of a new environment far from anything she knew. She thought about all the pain, and the loss, and all the guilt. But eventually she remembered that good things had come. She had never been without friends again. She had never let anything come between true friendship. She had found true love with someone else who was far better. She had never had problems with where she was going in college or life. And now she had realized that He had always been there for her. Through everything, He was there. Now she knew that Aslan had many different names in many different worlds and many different tongues.

And as she looked over to her side, she knew that Narnia, that heaven, could wait. Because she should cherish the life God had graciously given her. After all, heaven was only what she made it out to be, and it was not surrounded by clouds or blocked by white, pearly gates. No, heaven was sitting next to her, eagerly taking in his first look at real snow.

She smiled. They would be graduating together in the spring, and they would be getting married shortly thereafter.

She was glad that in the end she had always gone back, never leaving them behind. That she had never stopped reading, never stopped believing, not in her heart of hearts. And yes, she had grown up, but that was alright now.

The cab pulled to a stop in front of her parent's home, and she smiled at her love, gently squeezing his hand.

"You ready?" she asked him softly.

"Always," he nodded, smiling back.

As they got out of the car, she paused facing the house with a small frown marring her features as she thought. She knew her parents would be happy to hear about the engagement. They had always adored him.

She smiled. This was real happiness. As she turned to help with the luggage, a very contented warmth filled her inside.

This was heaven.

**The End**

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A/N: So that's it! What does everyone think? I hoped you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 


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